33 Everyday Words That Mean Something Completely Different To Snowboarders

From 'bonk' to 'birdbath', and everything inbetween.

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1) Kicker

What it means to the general public: A brand of shoe, popular among school children in the mid 1990’s.

What it means to snowboarders: A wedge shaped jump made out of snow, designed to send a snowboarder into the air when ridden off.

2) Rocker

What it means to the general public: A fan of rock music. Can be found sitting alone on buses, often dressed in denim, leather, or both.

What it means to snowboarders: A snowboard with an adverse camber, meaning the centre of the board is closest to the ground, arcing up towards the nose and tail. Ideal for beginners, and park rats.

3) Chicken Salad

What it means to the general public: A combination of chicken, green leaves, and assorted vegetables that your date orders to make you feel bad about having the steak.

What it means to snowboarders: A grab where the riders trailing hand reaches in front of their body, through the legs, and grabs onto the heel edge, between the bindings. Ideally not done in a vest.

4) Switch

What it means to the general public: A levered button on a device that allows power to be altered. Often found on electrical wall sockets.

What it means to snowboarders: Essentially riding backwards. The foot that you normally lead with goes at the back, and your normal trailing foot goes at the front. Akin to writing with your wrong hand. Something you promise yourself you’ll practice, and don’t.

5) Groomers

What it means to the general public: People who take a suspiciously long time ensuring their appearance is immaculate. Also, taxi drivers from Milton Keynes.

What it means to snowboarders: Large, tracked vehicles that ride on the piste at night, compressing the snow, and flattening out bumps.

6) Bail

What it means to the general public: Rectangles of hay produced by farm sorts for reasons yet unknown. Often found near the smell of shit.

7) Bonk

What it means to the general public: Rumpey-pumpey. Slap and tickle. A bit of the other. How’s-your-father. Nudge-nudge wink-wink. Making the beast with two backs. Parallel parking. Shagging. Noffing. Grandmas Elbow. Bashing. Screwing. Fucking. Banging. Sex! Casual sex.

What it means to snowboarders: To tap the end of ones board on a solid object, in theory, making a bonk sound.

8) Method

What it means to the general public: The procedure by which something is accomplished, worked out, or completed.

What it means to snowboarders: The leading hand grabs the heel edge of the board either between the binding, or in front of the leading binding. The trailing leg is boned out for extra style.

9) Knuckle

What it means to the general public: The protruding bits of bone where the hand meets the fingers. A knuckle sandwich is the threat of violence from somebody that sill thinks it’s 1974, and also actual food at Heston’s new place.

What it means to snowboarders: The part of a landing where flat ground becomes an descending slope. Landing on the ascending slope is the goal. Landing on the knuckle is painful, so is to be avoided.

10) Ragdoll

What it means to the general public: A doll made from rags, last seen commonly in the 1980s but can still be spotted in the hands of weird old men on the bus.

What it means to snowboarders: The act of rolling, uncontrollably downhill following a bail.

11) Blue

What it means to the general public: A colour. Often associated with feeling down, the French, and pornography.

What it means to snowboarders: A mellow slope that may have a few enjoyable side hits, but will probably be full of nervous skiers.

12) Red

What it means to the general public: A colour. Often associated with anger, communism, and footballing success throughout the 1990’s.

What it means to snowboarders: An enjoyable run, steep enough to maintain speed and pop off any rollers that happen to be around.

13) Black

What it means to the general public: A colour. Often associated with depression, unpopular kids in trench coats and boots with too much metal on them, and shitty 6th form poetry about nobody understanding you.

What it means to snowboarders: Icy run that’s far to steep to have any fun on. Full of lycra clad skiers from Essex showing off to their mates while secretly shitting themselves.

14) Japan

What it means to the general public: The land of the rising sun. Asian super-power, technological giant, and home to 127.3 million people.

What it means to snowboarders: The leading hand comes down past the front leg, wrapping around the shin, and grabbing the toe edge between the bindings. The knees are then bent, bringing the board back towards the riders bum.

15) Mute

What it means to the general public: The absence of sound. A function you wish your other half had.

What it means to snowboarders: Your leading hand reaches down and grabs the toe edge between the bindings. Grabbing in front of the bindings is illegal and will get you laughed at. Unless you do it ironically, in which case it’s cool. but you have to be cool to do that anyway. It’s a vicious circle.

16) AK

What it means to the general public: An AK:47. A selective fire, automatic, gas operated assault riffle. Gets mentioned a lot in grime songs.

What it means to snowboarders: Alaska. Northern-most state of the United States, and a backcountry mecca that tops most snowboarders bucket list due to its seemingly endless incredible terrain.

17) Pillows

What it means to the general public: Soft, fluffy sacks designed to rest ones head on when in bed, or to be used as a playful weapon during the opening stages of the films your dad keeps under his bed.

What it means to snowboarders: Large clumps of snow, formed above the surface of the snow on the ground. Pillows formed closely to each other an be ridden consecutively in a pillow line.

18) Straight line

What it means to the general public: A line that is straight.

What it means to snowboarders: To point the nose of ones snowboard directly down the fall-line of a mountain, enabling the snowboarder to ride at as fast a speed as possible. Acceptable when Travis Rice does it. Unacceptable when done by anybody in lycra.

19) Fish

What it means to the general public: Scaly animal found in water. Can be cooked and eaten with chips, or left raw and put down the back of your ex’s radiator.

What it means to snowboarders: Burton snowboard, made for riding in deep powder. Has a distinctive V shape cut from the back, giving it a swallowtail. If you don’t want to own one you either A) already do, B) will want to within five years, or C) are a skier.

20) Pop

What it means to the general public: Carbonated, noxious coloured drink that makes you fat and you’d give up drinking if, gosh-darn-it, it wasn’t so delicious.

What it means to snowboarders: Extra spring given to an ollie by the flex of a board. Before you can generate pop, you’ll try to and wonder if you’re doing it. And then, one day you’ll do it properly, and you’ll make a happy mess in your leggings.

21) White Room

What it means to the general public: A room that’s white. Popular with interior decorators and people that cannot have shoe laces.

What it means to snowboarders: When you ride through the huge cloud of snow you’ve just kicked up during a powder turn. This is what gives snowboarders pant-tingles when they become too old for kickers.

22) Slob

What it means to the general public: A lazy person who spends much of their day on the sofa, wondering whether the pain they can feel is pizza crust that got lost in a roll of fat, or a serious medical issue, but doing nothing about it either way.

What it means to snowboarders: Leading hand grabs to toe edge between the bindings when doing a straight air, or rotating frontside.

23) Binding

What it means to the general public: A way of tying two otherwise separate objects – such as a bed, and Gillian from Accounts – to each other.

What it means to snowboarders: Strapped mechanism that attaches the board to your feet.

24) Terje

What it means to the general public: An uncomfortable looking fold-up chair

What it means to snowboarders: The enfant terrible-turned-all conquering hero of snowboarding, Terje Haakonsen. He has arguably the most iconic Method in the game, and many in the sport simply refer to him as God. He loves football, hates the Olympics, and has been outwardly grumpier for much longer than Kanye West.

25) Park

What it means to the general public: A place where youngster go to have fun, while older people stand on the sidelines, wishing they were still as agile as their younger counterparts. Blighted by dog shit.

What it means to snowboarders: A place where youngsters go to have fun, while older people stand on the sidelines, wishing they were still as agile as their younger counterparts. Blighted by Park Rats.

26) Rat

What it means to the general public: Disease carrying rodent with much worse PR than the squirrel.

What it means to snowboarders: Baggy of clothes and often simple of mind, Rats can be found in the park, jibbing on anything they can see, and listening to dub reggae on the mp3 player their daddy brought them.

27) Box

What it means to the general public: Cuboid structure made from cardboard, used for the secure packaging of goods. Also a name for a vagina used by men who very rarely get to experience a vagina.

What it means to snowboarders: Often found in the park, it’s a hard, flat, smooth piece of perspex, ideal for learning how to do boardslides on, or buttering along if you’re flash.

28) Donkey Dick

What it means to the general public: The reproductive organs of the thing that’s like a shitty horse.

What it means to snowboarders: A rail that goes down, but has a flat flick at the end. Some also call these Donkey Kick rails, but would you trust anybody that missed the opportunity to say Donkey Dick?

29) Wax

What it means to the general public: The removal of unwanted body hair from a person, using hot, liquid wax and something that looks like a sanitary towel.

What it means to snowboarders: The cleaning and lubricating of the base of your snowboard, ensuring correct maintenance, and meaning you go a bit faster next time you take it out.

30) Jib

What it means to the general public: The triangular front sail of a boat

What it means to snowboarders: To ride rails and boxes, hitting jumps, and bonking anything you see into oblivion.

31) Button

What it means to the general public: Small plastic disk sewn onto items of clothing to ensure they stay fastened.

What it means to snowboarders: Stupid, stupid lift thing with a pole and a small disk designed by skiers, for skiers.

32) Butter

What it means to the general public: Yellow dairy product that’s particularly delicious on toast, and is either very bad for your health, or very good for you health, depending on who’s funded the scientific study in that days newspaper.

What it means to snowboarders: A ground trick where the snowboarder puts their weight onto the nose or tail of the board before rotating around. Simple and fun, just like the daft kid you necked at your first school disco.

33) Bird Bath

What it means to the general public: A ornament often found in public parks or the gardens of grandmas, designed for birds to bathe in. Possibly aided the spread of avian flu.

What it means to snowboarders: The out-stretched scrotum of a moustachioed Icelandic man, into which alcohol is poured and then drank by another human being. Did nothing to add to the spread of avian flu.

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